Oath Keepers plotted to use force on January 6: US prosecutor

A federal prosecutor has told a United States court that four members of the far-right Oath Keepers should be found guilty of seditious conspiracy for plotting to use force to stop the peaceful transfer of power at the US Capitol last year, in order to keep Donald Trump in the White House.

Monday marked the beginning of the US Department of Justice’s second major January 6, 2021, sedition trial, this time involving Oath Keeper defendants David Moerschel, Joseph Hackett, Roberto Minuta and Edward Vallejo.

“These defendants decided to take the presidential election into their own hands when they tried to stop the presidential transfer of power by force for the first time in our country’s history,” federal prosecutor Troy Edwards said in laying out the government’s argument.

Opening arguments came nearly two weeks after prosecutors won a victory in the first trial against Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes and four others.

In that first sedition trial, which lasted about eight weeks, a jury convicted Rhodes and Oath Keepers Florida chapter leader Kelly Meggs of seditious conspiracy, while acquitting defendants Kenneth Harrelson, Jessica Watkins and Thomas Caldwell of that charge.

All five were also convicted of obstruction of an official proceeding – the congressional certification of the election results – and the jury delivered mixed verdicts on a handful of other charges, including two other conspiracy counts.

The charges of seditious conspiracy and obstruction of an official proceeding each carry a sentence of up to 20 years in prison.

The four defendants in the current seditious conspiracy trial were part of the same indictment as Rhodes. Due to space limitations and the risks of COVID-19 contagion, presiding US District Judge Amit Mehta split the case into separate trials.

In addition to seditious conspiracy, all four are charged with conspiracy to obstruct and obstructing an official proceeding, and conspiracy to prevent members of Congress from discharging their duties.

Rhodes, who is currently jailed pending sentencing and was not in court on Monday, previously that there was no plan for members of his far-right group to attack the Capitol last year. “There was no plan to enter the building for any purpose,” he testified last month during his trial.

However, US prosecutors have said Rhodes and his co-defendants planned to use force to prevent Congress from formally certifying President Joe Biden’s election victory over Trump.

The former Republican president had falsely claimed the 2020 presidential election was stolen through widespread fraud, including in an incendiary speech delivered to a crowd of his supporters in Washington, DC, shortly before the Capitol riot broke out.

On the day of the attack by Trump’s supporters, Moerschel, Hackett, Minuta, Meggs, Watkins, and Harrelson all entered the Capitol clad in tactical gear.

Minuta, who led a group of several Oath Keepers into the Capitol, forcefully clashed with police, all the while screaming it was “their building”, Edwards told the jury on Monday. The prosecutor said that the defendants answered a “call to action” from Rhodes.

“This was an invitation to sedition,” Edwards said.

Vallejo is accused of staying back at a hotel in northern Virginia, where the Oath Keepers staged a “quick reaction force” that prosecutors said was equipped with firearms ready to be quickly transported into Washington.

A lawyer for one of the four Oath Keeper defendants, Hackett, said the group members went to the US capital not to attack but to provide security details at Trump’s “Stop the Steal” rally, where he addressed his supporters.

“At no point did anyone say that they were going to attack the Capitol,” Angela Halim told the jurors on Monday. “There was no unity of purpose.”

Halim also accused prosecutors of presenting a “warped version” of the defendants’s actions. “There was a rush to judgement,” she said.

None of the defendants in this trial have the name recognition of Rhodes, who founded the group in 2009.

Its members, which include current and retired US military personnel, law enforcement officers and first responders, have turned up, often heavily armed, at protests and political events around the US, including the racial justice demonstrations following the 2020 police killing of George Floyd.

Hackett and Moerschel are both members of the Florida chapter of the group, while prosecutors said Minuta previously served as a “leader” of the New York area’s members. Vallejo was part of a group of Oath Keepers from Arizona.